What's good ma peeps? It's like 8:30 in the morning and I've been up since two but I'm gonna go back to sleep after I post this because I still have a good two hours before I have to get ready for class.

To all who reviewed in the last chapter, thank you so much I appreciate the response!

Also to Roseheart37819: I am a girl, since you implied that you didn't know in your last review, haha. If you wanna know more about me, there's basic information on my profile so you can go have fun with that.

I am not planning to reread this until I finish class so I apologize for any typos or mistakes. I grammar checked the best I could so give me at least a day if I need to make any necessary edits and corrections! But anyway, without further ado...

Enjoy!

Chapter 10

The next morning was rather peaceful. It was a sunny day in Tokyo, the light filtering through the closed curtains in Seijuro's room.

Seijuro was the first one to stir from sleep. He opened his eyes and blinked the sleep away before he realized there was an unusually heavy weight placed on his chest. Looking down, he saw Bokushi sprawled across him, face down, breathing heavily.

How? Seijuro thought incredulously. He had all this space, but he still ended up on top of me…

Since Bokushi was cutting off the air supply to his lungs at that moment, Seijuro thought it would be best to move him off. He managed to untangle his arms from the duvet and attempted to carefully lift him off without waking him up.

He was in the process of lowering him onto the bed again, when Bokushi suddenly twitched in his sleep, his foot violently jabbing Seijuro in his side, which happened to be a sensitive spot. Seijuro, on instinct, flinched back, but apparently, he backed up too far and immediately fell off the bed.

Bokushi opened his eyes upon hearing the loud thud he just heard and looked around.

"I wonder where Seijuro-nii went," he murmured.

"Ugh…"

Bokushi furrowed his eyebrows and crawled to the edge of the bed where he looked down and saw Seijuro on the floor, arms sprawled out on either side of him as he glared up at his younger brother.

"Seijuro-nii, good morning. Are you doing yoga down there?"

"No," Seijuro said flatly. "And it's your fault that I'm down here."

Bokushi huffed and folded his arms. "Blame everyone but yourself, will you?" he said. "Well, maybe I wouldn't have kicked you if you weren't manhandling me."

"Well, maybe I wouldn't need to manhandle you if—wait, you were aware that you kicked me? Did you do that on purpose?"

Bokushi stiffened as a silence fell upon the room. Then, after ten seconds, he slowly stood up from the bed… and bolted for the door. Seijuro got up and chased him out into the hallway.

"Tanaka-san! Call the police! I'm being harassed!"

"Bokushi! Get back here!"

~O~

After going through their morning routine, the two of them, fully dressed, went to have breakfast. Around this time, it was a mere eight minutes past nine o'clock, so it was a reasonable time to wake up. They came downstairs and were immediately greeted by the staff.

"Young Master Seijuro, Young Master Bokushi, good morning," the maids greeted. Seijuro nodded at them and smiled.

"Good morning," he said back.

Bokushi looked up at his brother and followed his actions, nodding at the maids as well.

"Good morning," he said after Seijuro. "What is for breakfast today?"

"It's Western cuisine today. We have made Eggs Benedict with some fresh fruit salad. Are you alright with that?"

The five-year-old boy waved a hand in dismissal. "Of course," he replied. "You could serve me a brick and as long as it doesn't have seaweed or red pickled ginger I'd eat it. Now, where's my plate?"

Seijuro let Bokushi go on ahead to the table as he chuckled and shook his head before going to join him moments later. They sat down across from each other as they were served, and they began to eat their breakfast.

"So, Bokushi," Seijuro began as he put his fork down "We have the whole weekend to ourselves. Was there something you wanted to do?"

Bokushi shrugged, putting a strawberry in his mouth. "I didn't have anything in mind," he answered. "I didn't really think that far ahead."

Seijuro nodded. "I see," he said in thought. "Perhaps we could think of something later."

Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching the dining room. Turning his head to the entryway, he saw his father enter the room.

The staff bowed in greeting. "Good day, Akashi-sama."

"Yes, good day," Masaomi gave in reply.

He approached the table where Seijuro and Bokushi were sitting, the older one of the two brothers nodding his head toward the middle-aged man.

"Good morning, father…"

The man nodded back. "Good morning, Seijuro," he replied.

He stopped when he reached the table and stared down at Bokushi sitting adjacent to Seijuro. Bokushi stared back at him.

"Good morning, father" he greeted.

There was a noticeable pause before Masaomi gave a nod to him as well. "Good morning… It seems that I did not get your name yesterday."

The boy swallowed the food in his mouth before giving him a response. "Bokushi."

"Bokushi, huh?" his father repeated. "How peculiar."

"Seijuro-nii gave it to me."

Seijuro smiled over at Bokushi before making to pick his cutlery back up, but when he saw his father staring intently at Bokushi, he paused.

"Father… Father…"

Masaomi looked back up at Seijuro, almost as if Seijuro had broken him out of a trance.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I was going to ask where you were going."

Masaomi followed Seijuro's gaze down to the briefcase he was holding.

"A few things came up in the office, so I will not be back for a few hours. I will be seeing you later."

Seijuro nodded. "Of course."

Ever since the day before, Seijuro had noticed that the aura that always surrounded his father was much less intimidating. Usually, Seijuro could feel the tension when he approached him every day, but today seemed a little bit different. Perhaps it could just be his imagination since his father's facial expressions had not deterred away from his usual norm, but there was something about him today that seemed…strange…

"Ah, but before that…"

Seijuro turned to his father's voice and before he knew what happened, a large stack of files was placed in front of him on the table so suddenly that even Bokushi jumped a little. Seijuro eyed the files in confusion before gazing up at his father for an explanation.

"Um…these are…"

"Have you forgotten? Today is Saturday."

Seijuro's eyes widened in realization. He completely forgot. Saturday was when his father gave him business exercises to complete. Whenever he was home, it became a weekend tradition for his father to give him some reports to go through or he would analyze graph after graph of the current stock so he would have no problems doing it in the future when he took over the corporation.

Oh great…

"I have to look through all these reports today?" he said incredulously.

"You should be thankful," his father responded. "I reduced the load this time."

By what, a paragraph? Seijuro thought.

"When you have completed the tasks, put them on my desk so I can review your work. I will be off now."

Seijuro watched his father walk out of the dining room and towards the door, staring at him in slight exasperation. He may have mellowed down a bit, but he's still the devil, he thought solemnly.

Bokushi gave a smug grin to his older brother as he reached for his glass.

"One thing I most definitely will not miss about sharing a body with you is doing your homework," he said. "It was irritating."

"You're the last person I want to hear say the word 'irritating'," Seijuro retorted. "At least I don't give people unsolicited haircuts."

He smirked when Bokushi choked momentarily on his juice.

"It was just that one time!" he shot back. "And I said I was sorry!"

"Sorry doesn't bring back my bangs," Seijuro quipped. "I quite liked that hairstyle."

"Stop complaining! They're growing back aren't they?!"

"I have every right to complain. It was my hair you altered."

"You mean our hair."

"It was mine first."

Listening to their little quarrel go back and forth, the butler brushed past the dining room and smiled to himself.

It's going to be quite lively in here from now on.

~O~

When the two finished eating and thanked the staff, Seijuro got up from the table and surrendered to his fate, picking up the large stack of reports and excusing himself to his room.

While Bokushi watched his older brother go in the opposite direction, one of the maids approached him.

"Young Master, would you like us to accompany you while you wait?"

"No thank you," Bokushi said politely. "I think I will be able to manage for a few hours."

And with that, he began making his way down the corridor.

…

"Report number six finished…"

Seijuro tossed the stapled report into the pile on his desk containing the other five reports that had been finished over the past two hours. He sighed and tiredly rubbed his temples.

He still had six to go.

Seijuro was at least sixty percent sure that staring at reports all day wasn't healthy. He vaguely wondered how his father did it on a daily basis. It was nearly impossible to try and do that and manage a whole corporation.

But he's not human so it doesn't count, he mused.

Putting his red pen down on his study desk, Seijuro got up from his chair and stretched. A break didn't sound too bad at the moment. Perhaps he could check on Bokushi while he was at it. He hadn't seen him since breakfast anyway. So, with that in mind, he stepped out of his room and shut the door.

He walked around most of the estate, just trying to look for the small boy. After he tried the fifth room with no luck, he saw the butler walking by and called him over.

"Abe-san, have you seen Bokushi anywhere?"

The elderly man stopped and thought for a moment.

"If I remember correctly, I last saw him in the library," he answered. "Perhaps he might still be there, Young Master."

"The library, huh?" Seijuro looked down the hall where he knew the library was located and nodded toward the butler. "Thank you, I will go and check."

He continued on to the library and stepped through the entryway, taking a good look around.

The library was as big and vast as he remembered. Shelf after shelf of books just waiting to be opened. It was almost like a mini public library on its own.

When Seijuro was younger, on rainy days when his lessons were finished and he had the evening to himself, he liked to find the quietest corner in the library and curl up with a book. Even when he was really young, he always used to be in the library with his mother, reading the many books it had to offer.

Seijuro vaguely remembered a memory from when he was in elementary school, and instead of his mother reading a book to him, he tried to read it to her. His mother found it quite amusing since he was only in second grade and could only read some kanji, so he stumbled on some words, but she let him read all the same.

Seijuro walked alongside the shelves as his fingers brushed across the old and slightly worn books, letting himself wander a bit as he searched. He heard a page turn in the distance and turned to the left where the sound came from. When he finally emerged from the maze of shelves, he found Bokushi, knees pulled up and reading intently.

"Interesting book?"

Bokushi looked up and saw Seijuro smiling at him in greeting.

"Seijuro-nii, hello," he said politely. "Have you finished your task so soon?"

"I could only dream," Seijuro sighed. "I still have half the stack left, but I decided to take a short break so I could check on you. Is everything alright?"

"Yes. I'm quite alright. I'm just reading this book I found."

Seijuro looked down at the hardcover copy in Bokushi's hand and read the front cover. Moby Dick. Nice choice.

"Have you been in here since breakfast?"

"I have," Bokushi replied. "One day, I intend to read the whole collection in the library."

"That's quite an ambitious goal," Seijuro said, chuckling lightly. "Are you going to spend the rest of your days sitting in the library then?"

"What were you expecting?" Bokushi said, idly flipping a page. "When you go back to school at the end of the weekend, what else am I supposed to do?"

Seijuro fell silent and looked at the boy in slight bewilderment. Bokushi noticed the stare and raised a brow.

"What is it?"

"Ah… it's nothing," Seijuro said slowly. "Anyway, I should probably get back to my work. Do knock on my door if you need anything."

"Alright."

Bokushi went back to his reading and Seijuro turned around and went back the way he came, exiting the library to complete the work he was given. As he was walking away, Seijuro furrowed his brows in thought.

What an interesting point to bring up.

~O~

When Seijuro had finally finished the rest of the reports and had left the large stack of papers on the desk in his father's office, he decided to take another walk around the house. His walk brought him to the living room for reasons unknown and he gradually came to a stop in front of the window and began to stare out of it.

He was there for quite some time, the staff going in and out performing their daily tasks, taking notice of him spacing out in front of the large window. But they decided it was best to leave him to his own devices. After five minutes of contemplating, Seijuro sighed.

"It can't be helped."

He pulled out his phone from his pocket and began dialing a familiar number. It rang once, twice, and then someone answered.

"Akashi-kun?"

"Good afternoon, Kuroko," Seijuro greeted when the call was picked up. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Kuroko answered. "Are you and Bokushi-kun doing alright?"

"About that… there was something that I wanted to discuss."

"Is something troubling you?"

"Actually, something is," Seijuro admitted. "It's about something that Bokushi said earlier."

"What has he said to you?"

"He's very keen on reading, you see," Seijuro said, leaning back against the glass window. "So he wanted to try and finish our library's collection. I have no qualms about that, but he didn't seem to show a desire for anything else."

"I see," said Kuroko. "So, where does the problem lie?"

"The problem lies with how Bokushi will keep himself occupied while I'm gone for the last month or so. Since he has retained all of my knowledge from when we were sharing a body, he has the intellectual knowledge of a first-year high school student. In short, school is not something he needs to invest in until he's at least sixteen. But the issue here is that school is also where you develop connections with people, and so I fear that he's going to be quite antisocial if he misses out on that."

"I completely understand," Kuroko replied. "What you are implying is that, perhaps, Bokushi-kun should have a friend?"

"Yes, something along those lines," said Seijuro. "While he's not necessarily alone in the house, I couldn't possibly impose the full role of caretaker on the staff on top of all the things they have to do already, and I'm not sure where the relationship stands between my father and Bokushi, so I would like it if he had someone of his own to call a friend."

"It's a good feeling, having friends," Kuroko said on the other line. Seijuro could tell he was smiling. "I think it's a great idea to introduce Bokushi-kun to some agemates."

"Yes, it would be for the best," said Seijuro. "But how can I accomplish this? Where could I go to find children who are his physical age?"

"If I could make a suggestion," Kuroko interjected, "why not try the park? I guarantee you'll find many people there."

Seijuro nodded in understanding. "I see," he said. "That sounds like a good idea. I should take him there."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"Of course," said Seijuro. "Does half an hour's time sound doable to you?"

"Yes, it does," said Kuroko. "Should we meet in front of the park near your house?"

"That's fine. Thank you for offering to come."

"It's no problem. I'll see you in half an hour, then."

"Yeah. See you." He ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket, smiling to himself for a moment before going back in the direction of the library to tell Bokushi of their plans for this afternoon.

…

"We're going where?"

"To the park," Seijuro stated to the confused child sitting before him. "I thought it would be nice to get some fresh air."

"I could just sit in the garden for that," Bokushi supplied.

"You should take a walk every once in a while, it's good to get exercise," Seijuro retorted. "Also, you could socialize with children that are your physical age."

"What? You want me to socialize with mindless kindergarteners?"

"Don't be rude, they're not mindless," Seijuro said in exasperation. "It's that mindset that will get you into trouble when you get older. And since you can't just walk out and befriend random teenagers, this is our next best shot. Just try it, please. I'm going back tomorrow and I want to see you make at least one friend before I leave."

"Does it really matter?"

"Yes, it does," Seijuro said. "And it would be impolite not to go after Kuroko was nice enough to offer to come."

"I won't leave the house, even if it is Tetsuya," Bokushi huffed.

Seijuro stared back, unamused. "Don't be stubborn. Come on and stand up."

"This is pointless. I'm not going."

"Overruled."

Seijuro grabbed Bokushi before he could escape and slung him over his shoulder.

"Wha— How dare you?! Put me down!"

"Nonsense. Now come, let's get your shoes."

"Are you even listening to me? Seijuro-nii put me down!"

~O~

The park was a place that Seijuro always used to pass by on the way home in his middle school days. It was relatively spacious with several grass fields, a basketball court, and a playground at the center. Since it was a Saturday, quite a few children were out playing in the playground while their parents or guardians watched them nearby. And so there, in front of the playground area, were Seijuro and Bokushi, the latter with an unusually deep scowl on his face.

Seijuro looked down at Bokushi. "Stop making that face, it's unpleasant to look at."

"I will make whatever face I want," said Bokushi. "I knew we shouldn't have come here."

"Akashi-kun, Bokushi-kun, hello."

The two of them turned around and saw Kuroko approaching them, wearing his usual poker face.

Seijuro smiled and gave a small wave. "Hi, Kuroko. Thank you for joining us today."

"You're welcome. I thought it would be nice to help Bokushi-kun make a friend."

"I don't need to associate with anyone here," said Bokushi. "I'd rather go back to reading my book at home."

"I'm sure there are a lot of good kids here you can talk to," Kuroko said optimistically. "It shouldn't be too hard to find someone you like."

"Exactly," Seijuro concurred. "Why not give it a go?"

Bokushi turned to the swarm of playing children and began to scowl again. "This is probably your worst idea so far," he grumbled. "I am not mingling with these wild animals."

"I believe the proper term is children," Seijuro corrected. "And they're not going to bite. Just go on and talk to someone. Look, why not try over there?"

Seijuro pointed to a group of boys around Bokushi's physical age who were talking with each other in a circle. Bokushi stared at the group for some time before sighing in defeat and letting go of Seijuro's hand.

"Fine, I'll try over there," he said, sounding vaguely disgusted.

As he walked over to the small group, Seijuro and Kuroko sat on the bench nearby and waited.

Precisely twenty-seven seconds later, Seijuro and Kuroko are sitting next to a rather irritated Bokushi on the bench as they try to appease him.

"The nerve of them!" Bokushi growled, his arms folded. "They just left while I was talking."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Bokushi-kun," Kuroko said in sympathy, patting him on the shoulder.

"While it is unfortunate what happened, I wouldn't blame them," said Seijuro. "Most kids that age just don't want to hear about currency exchange."

Even Kuroko couldn't defend that. "Currency exchange is pushing it a little bit…"

"Is that so?" said Bokushi. "What do you want me to talk about then?"

"Something that they want to talk about," Seijuro suggested. "Such as their favorite color, or what games they like to play. Cater to their interests a bit more."

Bokushi slumped a bit as he considered this. "Very well, I'll try dumbing it down a bit."

"It's 'catering to their interests', not 'dumbing it down'," Seijuro corrected once again. "Use politer terms."

"Hm? Akashi, Kuroko, what are you doing here, in fact?"

Kuroko and Seijuro both quieted at the voice and looked behind them to find a teenage boy their age standing there. He had rectangular black-framed glasses that covered forest-green eyes, and his hair was also green as well. He was holding an alarm clock in his left hand, which had white tape wound around each of his five fingers.

Seijuro's eyes widened in realization when he recognized who had spoken.

"Midorima?"

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